Romelia Lichtenstein

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Romelia Lichtenstein , also Romelia Assenowa-Lichtenstein (born March 12, 1962 in Sofia ) is a German opera, operetta, oratorio, lied and concert singer ( soprano ).

Live and act

Romelia Lichtenstein was born in Sofia, grew up in Rostock and sang the first boy in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the age of nine . After training as a pediatric nurse, she studied singing with Helga Forner at the Leipzig University of Music .

The unusually broad spectrum of her soprano was already evident in her first engagement at the Chemnitz Opera - here she sang Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville , Sandrina in Mozart's Gärtnerin aus Liebe and, for the first time, the three women's roles in Offenbach's Hoffmann stories . Mozart's female roles also shaped her years at the Leipzig Opera House . Under the direction of Michail Jurowski , Lothar Zagrosek and Stefan Soltesz , she sang Zerlina and Fiordiligi, Pamina and the Queen of the Night, but also Mimi in Peter Konwitschny's production of La Bohème . Her comedic talent and the work with directors such as István Szabó , John Dew and Anthony Pilavachi allowed her to mature into a singer of high acting intensity and charisma.

She began at the Halle Opera House in 1995 with a debut as Madama Butterfly, for which Opernwelt magazine nominated her as the best opera singer of the year. Numerous other main roles followed, through which Romelia Lichtenstein became a singing personality that had a major impact on Halle music theater. In 2006/2008 Romelia Lichtenstein passed on her experiences as a mentor to scholarship holders of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation. Guest performances have taken her to the Semperoper Dresden, to the opera houses of Graz, Wiesbaden, Weimar and Metz. In recognition of her outstanding artistic merits, the soprano was appointed chamber singer in 2012.

The encounter with the music of George Frideric Handel was of particular importance for her vocal development . At the Handel Festival in Halle alone, she performed main and title roles in more than ten of his operas. Romilda in Serse , Florinda in Rodrigo , Gismonda in Ottone like the sorceress Alcina gave Romelia Lichtenstein unmistakable contours through her vocal presence and sophistication. At the Komische Oper Berlin Merab im Saul , at the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe Miriam in the opera collage “Die Plagen”. Her Elisa in Tolomeo can be experienced as a complete CD recording, her Alceste in Admeto on DVD. She repeatedly works with baroque specialists such as Marcus Creed , Howard Arman , Michael Schneider and Hermann Max . As a terrific interpreter and Handel protagonist, Romelia Lichtenstein was awarded the 2016 Handel Prize .

She took the seldom happy step of expanding her subject to become Italian-dramatic. “For Romelia Lichtenstein, Lucrezia Borgia is another bel canto triumph after Norma and Lucia di Lammermoor. With great intensity she manages the change from the lyrical to the dramatic in her arias, modulating the voice in the almost flawless coloratura in a perfect messa di voce. That she has a dark-timbred middle layer and uses it carefully, she recently impressively demonstrated in the same place as Lady Macbeth ”, wrote the journal ORPHEUS international (05/06 2011). With her Violetta in La Traviata she celebrated successes at the opera houses in Gothenburg and Bremen as well as in Stockholm in front of the Swedish royal family. From 2006 she was able to convince in a number of very demanding roles by Bellini, Verdi and Donizetti, including Abigaile in Nabucco and Leonora in The Troubadour . Along with Handel, Verdi became the second fixed point in Romelia Lichtenstein's work.

In the 2015/2016 season Romelia Lichtenstein appeared as Leonora in Verdi's Die Macht des Schicksals and in Handel's Lucio Cornelio Silla , she made role debuts as Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte and in the title role of Adriana Lecouvreur by Francesco Cilea . She shone as Puccini's Tosca and at the 2018 Handel Festival in the title role of Berenice, Regina di Egitto . At Oper Halle she sang in a production of Verdi's Messa da Requiem , the role of Sélica in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine and the title role in Offenbach's Grand Duchess von Gerolstein . She can currently be seen as Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera , soon as Elvira in Mozart's Don Giovanni and as Medea in Handel's Teseo .

Romelia Lichtenstein is also increasingly in demand as a concert singer. She sang in Mozart's Requiem , Haydn's The Creation , Britten's War Requiem and Shostakovich's XIV Symphony at the Berlin Philharmonic, the Musikverein Vienna, the Liederhalle Stuttgart, Madrid and Warsaw . Enoch zu Guttenberg engaged her for Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at the Santander Music Festival and for Verdi's Requiem at the Rheingau Music Festival. The CD recording of Giob by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize in 2002. In 2013 she made her concertante Wagner debut with the Wesendonck-Lieder and sang in Messa da Requiem during the Verdi Days . Romelia Lichtenstein interpreted songs by this almost forgotten Jewish composer as part of the supporting program for the opera “Schahrazade” by Bernhard Sekles - Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk broadcast the highly regarded concert. Her interpretation of Donizetti's Anna Bolena in concert performances in 2017 and 2018 became an outstanding musical experience. In the Clara Schumann Year 2019, Romelia Lichtenstein played the vocal part in a series of performances of a historical concert from 1869, a. a. in Zwickau, Leipzig, Magdeburg.

Prices

Discography

  • Georg Friedrich Handel, Admeto , 2 DVDs + 2 CDs, Arthaus Musik
  • Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Giob (oratorio), CD, cpo
  • Engelbert Humperdinck, Hansel and Gretel , DVD, NCA

Web links

Individual evidence


personal data
SURNAME Lichtenstein, Romelia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Assenowa-Lichtenstein, Romelia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera, operetta, oratorio, lied and concert singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Sofia